What if every character is Brawl was good?

[Super Smash Master]

Has anybody else been noticing that Sakurai has been balancing Brawl a lot more than Melee was. From a lot of the impressions from E4All and some other things have lead me to believe Sakurai is trying to make every playable character in the game. All the characters who are back so far that weren't good in Melee seemed to have been made better (Pikachu, Kirby, Bowser, etc). Sakurai seemed to have made Lucas a better version of Ness. They even nerfed Fox to keep him from being the juggernaut of Brawl. I also heard that they made Ike better from the E4all demo. I heard they made him a little faster and decreased his lag.

Does anyone realize how amazing it would be if every single character in Brawl was able to be played competitively and h ad a chance of winning. Obviously there will still most likely have tiers still, but they won't matter as much. What if there is no God-Tier or Bottom-tier characters? I think the balancing of the game is what is going to be the factor that makes Brawl really replace Melee.

 

[omfgomfg]

you are optimistic

 

[Rx-]

That is because he is the Super Smash Master.

Edit: Do you have a source for the Ike improved thing?

 

[Reyairia]

There are always going to be imbalance, but I just hope that the character someone picks on the screen makes the least possible amount of difference.

 

[5150]

when there are nearly no advanced techs, it's alot easier to balance a game.

 

[FoulPlay]

Wrong.
There will always be a tier listings in any competitive fighting game, no matter how close the characters are in terms of speeds, strength or anything.

Right now it looks like MetaKnight is the best character in the game in my honest opinion.

5-8 Jumps (inc. Up B + Glide)
Air Combo ***** with his jumps + Moves
Amazing Final Smash
Also his semi-decent speed.

Now let's compare him to what we know about Ike:
Super Slow
Super Strong
Decent Final Smash
No combos that we know of due to his speed making no one want to play him much.
See what I mean?

 

[Kittah4]

Wrong.
There will always be a tier listings in any competitive fighting game, no matter how close the characters are in terms of speeds, strength or anything.

Right now it looks like MetaKnight is the best character in the game in my honest opinion.

5-8 Jumps (inc. Up B + Glide)
Air Combo ***** with his jumps + Moves
Amazing Final Smash.

Wait wait, what do final smashes matter to tier calculators? The Smash Ball is an item.

 

[FoulPlay]

It doesn't mean it's banned.
In 2004 items weren't banned.
The final smash could be an amazing help if it's kept in tournament play, but none of us know if it is yet as we don't have the game nor had a tournament.

 

[FireJumpPunch]

There will inevitably be tiers, but it seems to me Sakurai is indeed trying his best to balance things out. You gotta love him.

 

[tafutureboy]

Wait wait, what do final smashes matter to tier calculators? The Smash Ball is an item.

yeah, smash balls cant be taken into account when making a tier list

 

[Dragothel]

It'd be so amazing, our heads would explode.

Tournaments would be great though.

 

[FoulPlay]

It'd be so amazing, our heads would explode.

Tournaments would be great though.

...Would? There already is tournaments of Melee, as you must know...
but yeah I'd love an online tournament to see what the rest of the world's players are really like, I mean I know EVERY pro out there is better than me by a long shot lol I discovered that early last year when I played pros from this country.

yeah, smash balls cant be taken into account when making a tier list

Smash Balls can't.
But final smash's can.
We don't know if that PITTY FINAL SMASH is still in even without the items on, as you don't need to BREAK the smash ball at all to get it.

 

[bballstar23]

From what I've heard Peach has been buffed, which is totally unfair, and Wario just plain sucks. At Jump Festa though, the Japanese said Ike was really good, so he may have been buffed since E for All.

 

[Greenpoe]

The team for Brawl is absolutely massive, so hopefully that gave them the ability to balance the characters out. There will always be tiers, but ideally, compared to Melee, we'll have upper-mid tier, mid-tier, and lower-mid tier, with no top, upper, God, lower, or bottom tiers (compared to Melee).

Also, tiers aren't really accurate. Look at Gimpyfish. He mained Bowser (bottom tier) and did really well with Bowser. Gimpyfish is one person, so there might've been enough undiscovered potential for Bowser to knock him up a few tiers. If you've never seen a Youtube video of Gimpyfish playing Bowser, then go watch that, and it'll show you what dedication can do.

Game & Watch is another perfect example. Bottom tier, but some people are amazing with him. People have won serious tournaments with him. He's just underestimated.

Tiers create a strong placebo effect which you don't realize. Once people see tiers they automatically assume bottom tiers are not any good. These kinds of nutshells are destroying the balance of the game.

 

[Santini]

Well, just by the nature of having a roster of characters, half of them will be below average. But hopefully the difference between the worst character and the best character won't be as drastic as it was in Melee.

 

[Super Smash Master]

That is because he is the Super Smash Master.

Edit: Do you have a source for the Ike improved thing?

Actually, this sounds very dumb, but when I was making my username, I wasn't really paying attention and typed Smash instead of Ska. I actually intended my username to be Super Ska Master, but this is my punishment for not paying attention. T_T

But I think people are missing the point of the thread. I know some characters are going to be better than others. I just mean I don't think any characters will flat out suck. And I know Metaknight is ridiculously good.

 

[Krell]

If every character was more or less balanced, I would be very happy. Tournament play would no longer be "Who do you play, Fox, Marth, or Sheik?" Sounds nice.

 

[OrlanduEX]

I wonder about this. I figured Brawl would be LESS balanced than Melee. The more characters they add, the harder it becomes to balance everyone out. It seems to me that the team is more focused on adding content than on making a competitive fighting game.

 

[InvincibleAgent]

I think it's funny that you called Fox the juggernaut of Brawl, and you have a Juggernaut icon

And I would love if every character were competitive.

 

[Linkeatspie]

From Gimpyfish's impressions from the E 4 All Demo, it does seem that characters are more balanced. And it would be awesome if what you said about Ike is true.

Seriously, if every character could be competitively played, it would introduce a lot more variety to the tournament scene. As mentioned, there would be tiers, but they would not be important.

That is my hope.

 

[Fletch]

The characters only seem "more balanced" right now because we've had little to no interaction with the game. Remember when Melee first came out, the tiers were all over the place and many different characters were considered playable. Now you just don't see as many different characters (really fluctuates between like 8-10, with a major emphasis on the top 4). However, this is still insanely good for a fighting game, melee is much more balanced than you think when you compare it to other games.

 

[Super Smash Master]

I think it's funny that you called Fox the juggernaut of Brawl, and you have a Juggernaut icon

And I would love if every character were competitive.

Hahahahaha I didn't realize that. Thanks for pointing that out. =P

 

[IWontGetOverTheDam]

That's kind of the reason that Final Smashes were put into to game. For example, Peach is kinda bad, but her FS is kinda awesome.

 

[FireJumpPunch]

That's kind of the reason that Final Smashes were put into to game. For example, Peach is kinda bad, but her FS is kinda awesome.

I think it's the other way around.

 

[SmashChu]

A few things

1)None of you guys have Brawl yet so saying someone sucks or not is out of the questions.
2)Can't say Ike sucks becuase, like all the characters, no one has had enough play time with him. He could be top tier for all you know
3)Brawl=/=Melee. What made top tier characters in Melee may not be the same for Brawl
4)Melee was indeed balanced. It's only in tournament play where tier appear. It makes sense since you restricted the rules so much that only certain characters can take advantage of them. A normal match with your friends is balanced.
5)There will be tiers in Brawl. Whether or not it effects you is a different story.

 

[MookieRah]

From Gimpyfish's impressions from the E 4 All Demo, it does seem that characters are more balanced. And it would be awesome if what you said about Ike is true.

I very much disagree with that. It's just that Gimpy was being really optimistic about his experience at the E for All. It's apparent that balance will be just as wonky as it was before, but it will simply be randomized somewhat. Yeah, they made Bowser better, but they gimped Fox. For some reason the buffed the hell out of Peach, and decided that she could keep DJC but not Yoshi. DK appears to be pretty much unchanged, and he was pretty lackluster in Melee and deserved buffs. The simple fact that there were characters clearly better than others at E for ALL points out that more than likely the balance will still be off. Also, as OrlanduEX stated, more characters *usually* mean less balance.

I know some of you guys will bring this up, so I'm going to go ahead and address it: On the case of BUM doing great with DK, the thing is that before BUM came around there weren't any good serious DK players left. DK's metagame was somewhat left to the wayside and didn't really develop too much after that Canadian DK player from the Punch Crew quite (I can't remember his name for the life of me). Because BUM was good and had developed a slew of new incredibly efficient tricks and tactics with DK he caused a stir in the metagame; however, I predict his success with DK will at the best stagnate and more than likely decline as more and more of the better players create counter strategies to all of BUM's tricks. This, of course, is how things evolve in the metagame.

2)Can't say Ike sucks becuase, like all the characters, no one has had enough play time with him. He could be top tier for all you know

Well we can't say Ike sucks now, because it was said in the Japanese forums that he was playable, so they may have actually made him better. However, if Ike was as slow as they said then he would simply be the worst character in smash history. This is not debateable. Why? Because in order to do well you have to be able to counter as many strategies and create as many as possible. When all of your moves take forever to come out, you can't set anything up. It doesn't matter if you are a genius, a faster character would simply not allow you to attack by just overwhelming you with an offensive pressure game.

3)Brawl=/=Melee. What made top tier characters in Melee may not be the same for Brawl

Also wrong. While they changed things and nerfed things, the basic traits that made the top tiers better than the rest could potentially make Brawl characters the best. The only exception to this is if they somehow managed to make slow characters viable, which while it seems to be more balanced than before it still isn't fixed. Bowser, even with all the buffs, probably won't be much better off than mid tier considering. Gimpy said himself that Bowser now seems viable, but he definitely wasn't as good as the best characters on the demo.

A normal match with your friends is balanced.

Nah, it wasn't balanced for low level play either. Sheik destroys everyone on low level play. Meanwhile Yoshi, Kirby, DK, Mewtwo, and others are ****ty at low level play.

 

[retro gamer 6]

Has anybody else been noticing that Sakurai has been balancing Brawl a lot more than Melee was. From a lot of the impressions from E4All and some other things have lead me to believe Sakurai is trying to make every playable character in the game. All the characters who are back so far that weren't good in Melee seemed to have been made better (Pikachu, Kirby, Bowser, etc). Sakurai seemed to have made Lucas a better version of Ness. They even nerfed Fox to keep him from being the juggernaut of Brawl. I also heard that they made Ike better from the E4all demo. I heard they made him a little faster and decreased his lag.

Does anyone realize how amazing it would be if every single character in Brawl was able to be played competitively and h ad a chance of winning. Obviously there will still most likely have tiers still, but they won't matter as much. What if there is no God-Tier or Bottom-tier characters? I think the balancing of the game is what is going to be the factor that makes Brawl really replace Melee.

i totally agree with the balancing of characters. i thought that fox, falco, and marth were broken in melee. and i'm glad that fox got nerfed too. read my thread about this if you're interested: http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=133175

low tier characters are being buffed like kirby, who is my main. and hopefully each character will have an equal chance of winning, it just depends on the skill of the player. i only wish that fox got nerfed a little more. but i can't wait for brawl. awesome!

 

[Pegasus Knight]

Some thoughts on this...

- As others have mentioned, 'tiers' will exist in Brawl. What most (not all, but most) of them haven't covered is why tiers will exist. Tiers represent our understanding of all the characters; they show that with our current skills and assuming both players are equal in skill, we will generally have characters A, B, and C beat X, Y, and Z. Tiers exist because we can make some absolute, quantitive statements about characters. If you want an easier to see example of this, look at Magic the Gathering; Mark Rosewater wrote an excellent example of why bad cards exist in his "When Cards Go Bad" (Google it, top result for that title on wizards.com).

The TL;DR Summary of the article is that even if all cards were competitively balanced, you would still have "good cards" and "bad cards" because they aren't all equal. Inherently, you will see that some cards are better than others. Brawl will be the same way; a 'tier list' will inevitably result, and it's nobody's fault. Let's say all the characters score between 95 to 105 on their theoretical "usefulness quotient"; someone who wants to win will still pick a 105-scored character.


Now, to directly answer the question of this thread's title? If every character was competitively viable, we would still see some 'tier reliance', the "picking 105-score characters" thing I mentioned. They would still be the most popular characters, based on what we perceive to be the most powerful characters in the game at the time. But if the gap between bottom and top is less severe than it was in Melee...you will see more variety. Some people don't play top-tier because those characters aren't comfortable to their playstyle. If the character-power differential is small enough, these players can make up for the lack of power with extra comfort and familiarity, resulting in a higher number of 'low tier victories.'

Not only that, but some weaker characters will exist as a matter of skill-exploration. Determining which characters are good, and why they're good, is part of skill in any game with multiple options to pick from. Someone will 'suck' or genuinely suck in Brawl; I just hope it's none of the characters I enjoy from a design standpoint, heh heh.

 

[okiyama]

you are optimistic

QFT

Seriously unless they majorly revise Ike he'll ge garbage tier.

 

[Tinkerer]

Some thoughts on this...

- As others have mentioned, 'tiers' will exist in Brawl. What most (not all, but most) of them haven't covered is why tiers will exist. Tiers represent our understanding of all the characters; they show that with our current skills and assuming both players are equal in skill, we will generally have characters A, B, and C beat X, Y, and Z. Tiers exist because we can make some absolute, quantitive statements about characters. If you want an easier to see example of this, look at Magic the Gathering; Mark Rosewater wrote an excellent example of why bad cards exist in his "When Cards Go Bad" (Google it, top result for that title on wizards.com).

The TL;DR Summary of the article is that even if all cards were competitively balanced, you would still have "good cards" and "bad cards" because they aren't all equal. Inherently, you will see that some cards are better than others. Brawl will be the same way; a 'tier list' will inevitably result, and it's nobody's fault. Let's say all the characters score between 95 to 105 on their theoretical "usefulness quotient"; someone who wants to win will still pick a 105-scored character.

You can't compare those two at all. You play with a whole deck of cards in a card game, while you play with only one character at a time in Brawl. In a card game, you need a lot of different cards, and while some aren't as useful as others, you WILL need them all, whereas in Super Smash Bros., you want as much balance as possible by making every character as strong as everyone else. Of course, there will always be characters who are better against others, but this should even out for everyone (e.g. as much characters bad against as good against), in the perfect game. Now, it's impossible to make a perfect game with perfect balance, especially somewhere where everyone is on his own, but you can't argue that you NEED weaker characters.

 

[PITforREV]

won't happen, and honestly, your giving sakurai too much credit...the characters really don't seem THAT balanced......

What would have been nice is when sakurai realized the characters weren't balanced, their final smashes kind of coudl have been a way to even that out...but judging by metaknight's final smash and DK's he didnt think liek that.

 

[Kittah4]

From reading the DK example it seems to me like the tier list will take even longer to develop than melee. As you say, underused characters can shake up the metagame when people don't know how to counter specific tactics.

With likely more than 35 characters in Brawl, it will take longer, I believe, to find the "better" characters, and hopefully the better characters won't be that much better. With more variety in the "tiers", it will become harder for one person to have all the skills to counter all of the viable characters, thus the tier list will probably shift more often, and that's a good thing.

Who knows, Yoshis lack of DJC might even become a good thing. Since air dodges follow momentum, and his double jump has very strange and beneficial momentum, he might resist edgeguarding better.

All I'm saying is I hope most characters have something that makes them viable. Whether its doing good on recovery or abusing super armor frames.

 

[RedKnight]

Brawl will be fine

Alright first of all Sakurai has a MASSIVE team. Therefore the more characters the less attention to them is not true. He has the numbers to make sure that they all get balanced.

Another thing there are many reasons why Sakurai is willing to release demos to the public. Not only is it publicity, but it allows them a chance to see how well we take to the characters and how well we play them. Therefore he can see how he needs to balance them.


All these ideas may be trash but I believe Sakurai wants all characters to played and used.



Also, I dont think gimpy was just being too optimistic. He went there he took notes on SEVERAL details that the average player may not even notice. From what hes said high tier charcters have been nerfed in certain ways and recieved a few small buffs that keep them as good characters. Low and mid tier characters sound like they are being improved too.


Mario is better this time around. Much better. In Melee the trophy descriptions said that Mario is the measuring stick by which all the characters are measured. He is the perfect middle ground. If Mario is better this time around, that says to me that the bar has been raised.



If Ike sucked at the demo Im sure it can easily be improved. Maybe he needs to be a little faster. Maybe he just neeeds more super armor. maybe he needs to be a little harder to KO. I fully trust Sakurai and his team to find the perfect balance.




In conclusion...
I am positive about the balancing of Brawl and trust that all playable characters will recieve proper attention. This game will be great


Feel free to flame.

 

[Mad555]

also heard that they made Ike better from the E4all demo. I heard they made him a little faster and decreased his lag.

When you say faster, do you mean he can walk faster or his moves are faster.

 

[AMPMClock]

MookieRah, your full of ****.


Also, as far as which characters are technically better and which ones are technically worse, people are always going to be making calculations and decisions, deciding who is better, but that won't bother me one bit. Playing with friends and items turned on, on whatever stage, the victor of the match will never really matter.

 

[MookieRah]

Alright first of all Sakurai has a MASSIVE team. Therefore the more characters the less attention to them is not true. He has the numbers to make sure that they all get balanced.

This is based on what you think, there is no evidence pointing to the amount of people on Sakurai's team that is devoted to character balance. I'm sure we all would want to believe this, but you can't just make some kind of wild speculation just because it seems logical.

Another thing there are many reasons why Sakurai is willing to release demos to the public. Not only is it publicity, but it allows them a chance to see how well we take to the characters and how well we play them. Therefore he can see how he needs to balance them.

The demos have nothing to do with seeing how it affects character balance. The thought of that is absurd, because random people get the chance to play it. You can't get anything definitive from a group of people at random skill levels playing random characters at these events.

Also, I dont think gimpy was just being too optimistic. He went there he took notes on SEVERAL details that the average player may not even notice. From what hes said high tier charcters have been nerfed in certain ways and recieved a few small buffs that keep them as good characters. Low and mid tier characters sound like they are being improved too.

He is being optimistic. Please note the fact that Hugs wasn't too stoked about things while Gimpy was pretty much trying to talk himself into liking everything about Brawl. Everyone agreed that it was "fun" but it had it's host of problems too. Also, all of his notes are available to me and other competitive players and we all draw our own conclusions. It's obvious that there is a ton of character balance issues and design flaws in general. You honestly don't see much of these kinds of discussions because most people that play melee competitively don't even post in this section of the forums because of all the newer people with their overly optimistic view points.

Mario is better this time around. Much better. In Melee the trophy descriptions said that Mario is the measuring stick by which all the characters are measured. He is the perfect middle ground. If Mario is better this time around, that says to me that the bar has been raised.

Mario is better, but fox is worse. The bar hasn't been raised, merely that the character balance has shifted into another out of wak position. Nintendo, like many other companies, doesn't know and honestly probably doesn't care enough to truly balance out characters. They hit some characters with the nerf stick too hard and buff the other characters too much.

I am positive about the balancing of Brawl and trust that all playable characters will recieve proper attention. This game will be great

You speak out of blind optimism. You aren't aware of all the things you are even debating and most of the stuff you bring up you are pulling out of your ***. You then further assert your view with big green text. You aren't proving your point, you are merely being a tool.

Seriously, people need to learn how to assess things on their own. I have no problem with those like Gimpy who are optimistic but are smart and can truly defend their reasoning, but I really can't stand all the random zealots that listen to other people and tote their words around without thinking on their own. Get your own opinions people.

MookieRah, your full of ****.

Please, if you disagree, make me realize my errors. Debate with me on it. My opinions are well thought out and I know what I'm talking about. I've seen things develop over the course of melee's big boom and I have evidence and information to back up everything I say.

Playing with friends and items turned on, on whatever stage, the victor of the match will never really matter.

In those settings it won't matter. We are talking about competitive play here.

 

[Atire]

true that, tthat would be amazing so everyone can use their own characters and have a chance of winning

 

[xXx_KidIcarus_xXx]

I think Brawl will be more balanced than Melee from what we've seen at Efor All, and it does look like Ike needs to be a bit faster, but anyway, even if it's not more balanced than melee, if it's balanced the same as melee, who cares?!?! we have all played melee for years, and we still love playing it, with the addition of new characters and stages, new items and stuff, we will probably be playing Brawl even longer than we have played Melee, regardless of how "balanced" it is

 

[eggs-on-toast]

In my opinion the tier list is useless, well to me, a casual, who just wants to have fun. I think at a CASUAL level all characters are balanced but this is at casual level. Sure it might show who's better when used to there full potential, but i can't picture fox being too much better than Bowser. What i hope they balanced is the 'power vs. speed'

What i like to do is use my favourites as i have done in all mario spin-off types like mario kart DD i was told the "heavies" sucked yet i was best with D.K. so what i say is be whoever you like as i usually do better with people i like.

 

[MilesPrower]

It would be Smash Awesome. Play with your favorite characters again and actually do something.

KIRBY, ANYONE?

lol. Kirby says HI, ****!!!!!!!!!!!!!!